Shackling the world’s press with good intentions

David Flint sat at a table in the rooftop conference room of The Freedom Forum on a sunny morning last week, speaking in the same tone and manner one might expect in the recitation of a grocery list. But arrayed around the table as his audience were members of a number of U.S. press organizations who weren’t there for tips on best buys at Safeway.

They were there to find out more about the most recent international campaign to save the press from itself.

Flint is a professor of law from Australia, where he chairs the Australian Broadcasting Council and is former chair of the national press council. More important, he heads up the executive council of the World Association of Press Councils. In September, that body decided that the world needs an international code of ethics for the press, a mechanism for enforcing it, and a global press council to handle “transnational” complaints about the press.

Professorial and persuasive, Flint articulated a vision of journalists serving the cause of freedom and human need under a global code of ethics. The press council would be needed to adjudicate complaints of individuals about error and excess by the press, as well as occasional complaints from government officials about the “misinterpretation” of domestic policies and events by foreign journalists. For good measure, Flint pointed out that the code and council also would defend press freedom and help halt the hastening decline in respect for the press.

That’s the pitch, anyway. In reality, Flint and his colleagues have bought into the idea that the press is just too free and is in dire need of responsibility, restraint and regulation.

Most of those in his audience last week, however, have not bought into that idea, nor are they likely to. For good reason.

Despite the proponents’ soothing words about voluntary participation and nongovernment involvement, these proposals betray the same animus toward Western-style reporting that produced UNESCO’s “new world information order” two decades ago. Although that disastrous policy was eventually rescinded, there are still nations around the world that would like to find a way to control the international press the same way they do their own.

Interestingly, the WAPC proposals come on the heels of harsh criticism from press councils in Turkey, Sri Lanka and India of foreign reporting about conflicts in their countries. And proponents don’t try very hard to conceal a look-down-the-nose attitude toward the U.S. press’s coverage of the Clinton scandal and recent reports of plagiarism and other transgressions by U.S. journalists.

While some criticism of the press certainly is warranted, the proposed remedies would more likely kill the patient than cure the disease; indeed, it would aggravate a world situation badly in need of more press freedom, not less.

Those who would draft a code of ethics suitable for all of the journalists of the world undertake a daunting and ultimately impossible task. The political, ideological and religious differences are too deep, the cultural divides too vast, and the journalistic traditions too diverse.

Those who would establish a world press council should look to the fact that fewer than 30 countries have adopted the concept. In the United States, a national press council struggled for 11 years to survive, then succumbed to lack of funds, lack of participation, and lack of interest (although a handful of state and local councils has survived).

But even if the odds were overcome and the WAPC succeeded in establishing a code and a council, the problems endemic to the concepts could not be overcome.

In the end, internal regulation of the press is no better than the external variety.

To codify journalistic “norms” is to hand yet another tool to dozens of governments already engaged in the persecution, torture and imprisonment of individual journalists — governments that shut down newspapers, journals, and radio and television stations at will.

Even though the code would be voluntary, governments could interpret them as they wished to rein in alleged excesses of the press, or to grant or deny accreditation of journalists.

Further, the wall between press councils and government crumbles all too easily. In some countries, press councils are statutory entities. In some, they receive government funds and/or sanction.

A global code of ethics creates an expectation of results that creates a demand for conformance that creates a need for enforcement that cannot be realized without the power or sanction of government.

That does not seem to deter Turkish journalist Oktay Eksi, who has spent much of his life fighting to help free fellow journalists imprisoned in his country. In supporting the call for a global code and council, Eksi says, “Let’s accept that journalism is journalism. It’s the same all over the world. … We try to achieve the same goal, which is freedom of expression.”

Eksi and Flint are passionate, and because of their passion, persuasive, especially in a world fed up with the supposed excesses of journalists. But good men behind a bad idea is a dangerous combination. In any country and in any time, passionate pleas for press regulation are nothing less than the death rattle of freedom.

Let’s hope David Flint takes back to the World Association of Press Councils word of the polite but firm rejection of their proposals from the American journalists.

Let’s hope that they come around to the notion that has served the American press and public so well for two centuries: The best possible regulators of the press, and the only ones necessary, are readers, listeners and viewers.

The sound of an audience leaving is the one complaint journalists are most apt to hear loud and clear.

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THE EXPERTS

The First Amendment Center is an educational organization and cannot provide legal advice.

Ken Paulson is president of the First Amendment Center and dean of the College of Mass Communication at Middle Tennessee State University. He is also the former editor-in-chief of USA Today.

Gene Policinski, chief operating officer of the Newseum Institute, also is senior vice president of the First Amendment Center, a center of the institute. He is a veteran journalist whose career has included work in newspapers, radio, television and online.

John Seigenthaler founded the Newseum Institute’s First Amendment Center in 1991 with the mission of creating national discussion, dialogue and debate about First Amendment rights and values.

About The First Amendment Center

We support the First Amendment and build understanding of its core freedoms through education, information and entertainment.

The center serves as a forum for the study and exploration of free-expression issues, including freedom of speech, of the press and of religion, and the rights to assemble and to petition the government.

Founded by John Seigenthaler, the First Amendment Center is an operating program of the Freedom Forum and is associated with the Newseum and the Diversity Institute. The center has offices in the John Seigenthaler Center at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn., and at the Newseum in Washington, D.C.

The center’s website, www.firstamendmentcenter.org, is one of the most authoritative sources of news, information and commentary in the nation on First Amendment issues. It features daily updates on news about First Amendment-related developments, as well as detailed reports about U.S. Supreme Court cases involving the First Amendment, and commentary, analysis and special reports on free expression, press freedom and religious-liberty issues. Support the work of the First Amendment Center.

1 For All

1 for All is a national nonpartisan program designed to build understanding and support for First Amendment freedoms. 1 for All provides teaching materials to the nation’s schools, supports educational events on America’s campuses and reminds the public that the First Amendment serves everyone, regardless of faith, race, gender or political leanings. It is truly one amendment for all. Visit 1 for All at http://1forall.us/

Help tomorrow’s citizens find their voice: Teach the First Amendment

The most basic liberties guaranteed to Americans – embodied in the 45 words of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution – assure Americans a government that is responsible to its citizens and responsive to their wishes.

These 45 words are as alive and important today as they were more than 200 years ago. These liberties are neither liberal nor conservative, Democratic nor Republican – they are the basis for our representative democratic form of government.

We know from studies beginning in 1997 by the nonpartisan First Amendment Center, and from studies commissioned by the Knight Foundation and others, that few adult Americans or high school students can name the individual five freedoms that make up the First Amendment.

The lesson plans – drawn from materials prepared by the Newseum and the First Amendment Center – will draw young people into an exploration of how their freedoms began and how they operate in today’s world. Students will discuss just how far individual rights extend, examining rights in the school environment and public places. The lessons may be used in history and government, civics, language arts and journalism, art and debate classes. They may be used in sections or in their entirety. Many of these lesson plans indicate an overall goal, offer suggestions on how to teach the lesson and list additional resources and enrichment activities.

First Amendment Moot Court Competition

This site no longer is being updated … And the competition itself is moving to Washington, D.C., where the Newseum Institute’s First Amendment Center is co-sponsoring the “Seigenthaler-Sutherland Cup National First Amendment Moot Court Competition,” March 18-19, in partnership with the Columbus School of Law, of the Catholic University of America.

During the two-day competition in February, each team will participate in a minimum of four rounds, arguing a hypothetical based on a current First Amendment controversy before panels of accomplished jurists, legal scholars and attorneys.

FIRST AMENDMENT CENTER ARCHIVES

State of the First Amendment survey reports

The State of the First Amendment surveys, commissioned since 1997 by the First Amendment Center and Newseum, are a regular check on how Americans view their first freedoms of speech, press, assembly, religion and petition.

The periodic surveys examine public attitudes toward freedom of speech, press, religion and the rights of assembly and petition; and sample public opinion on contemporary issues involving those freedoms.
See the reports.